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The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is somehow getting better and one of the prime examples of that is the recent appearance of Chris Christie. Christie, doing a book promotion tour, was welcomed with some brutal honesty about the reason for his debut on the show, despite multiple invitations.

The former New Jersey Governor, however, came back with “before we get into that: are we going to drink or not?” Well, shots of tequila were pulled out and the interview could get going. Colbert, a fierce critic of Donald Trump, asked Christie about several things – including his friendship with Trump, and at some point in the interview Christie says: “I know politics and sometimes you just have to be a big boy, pull up your pants and walk away”. To which Colbert retorted: “Because you got spanked?”

As much as the two apparently differ in opinion, however, the conversation did not have a feel of enmity to it. Despite at some point Colbert asking Christie what was his constituency, because he had a minimal approval rate in Jersey, Trump-opposers don’t like him for supporting Trump and Trump fans hate him for releasing a book on the presidency.

Watch the two piece interview on youtube for more.

https://reasonish.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Chris_Christie_by_Gage_Skidmore_5.jpg37445616Writey McWordishhttp://reasonish.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Reasonish_capture-300x145.pngWritey McWordish2019-01-30 19:12:052019-01-30 19:12:11Colbert brutally crushed Chris Christie, and he was a good sport about it

If idle hands do the devil’s work, as the Christian saying goes, lo the devil must be science. At least in the case of Kristin Hook. As she was furloughed during the American government shutdown, she used her time and PhD skills to check Trump’s claim of a border crisis. And being the scientist she is, she wrote a report with conclusions, data, graphs and verifiable references in annotations.

The conclusions she draws aren’t spectacular. In short: President Trump is wrong and probably lying. There is no crisis, illegal immigration is at an all-time low and illegal immigrants reduce crime rates and violence rather than increase them

However, it’s 2018, so she wrote said report on Twitter. If you’ve never seen a scientific study in tweet-form, well… neither had we.

As a furloughed scientist, I thought it worthwhile to use my PhD skills to look at evidence for the president’s claims of a national security crisis & whether his desire for a wall is an adequate justification for a government #shutdown that has cut off pay for 800,000 Americans.

What every American should be asking themselves right now is this: what is the evidence that our border is so unsafe that it constitutes a crisis and the need to #BuildTheWall? Evidence that would be needed to support such a claim are that…— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

(A) there has been a dramatic increase in people crossing our border over time, (B) there is an increase in crime with an increase in immigration, and immigrants commit more crimes than those within our borders, and/or (C) current strategies for border security are ineffective.— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

There is absolutely no evidence for (A). In fact, the opposite is supported – unauthorized immigration rates actually slowed down between 2010 and 2016, when it fell to its lowest level in decades (1). Overall, the population of unauthorized immigrants shrank by 13%…— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

between 2007 and 2016 in the U.S. As of January 2015, there were an estimated 10.7 to 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States (1, 2). That’s 3.3% to 3.7% of the total U.S. population, which was 328,337,383 on this very day in 2015.— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

For perspective, the current unemployment rate for people 16 years of age and over is 3.9% (3), greater than the number of illegal immigrants residing in our country. (Side bar: how is *this* not a national crisis?)— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

In looking at the data for total apprehensions of illegal aliens across multiple years by our border patrol, these numbers have also declined (4). Because I’m a scientist and love data, I acquired the raw data and made you a graph so you could see the trends for yourself. pic.twitter.com/1BG8BH5T5j— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

So to conclude, there is no evidence for (A). What about (B)?— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

Studies on the subject have found no immigrant-crime link. NONE. This revelation comes from a study that attempted to correlate undocumented immigration and violent crime in all 50 states and DC using multiple data sources at the state level from 1990-2014.— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

Their robust analyses reveal the opposite relationship: increases in the undocumented immigrant population are generally associated with significantly *lower* rates of violence (5). Other studies reveal that illegal immigrants have *lower* conviction and arrest rates…— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

relative to native-born Americans in the U.S. In my home state of #Texas alone, a study of 2015 data found that the homicide rate for illegal immigrants was 16% *below* that of native-born Americans; for all criminal convictions,…— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

illegal and legal immigrants had criminal conviction rates 50% and 66% *below* that of native-born Americans, respectively (6). Together these findings undermine statements that undocumented immigrants are criminals and/or are bringing crime into the United States.— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

In looking at statistics from the U.S. Border and Customs Protection, two things are clear: an increase in funding (7) & an increase in staffing agents (8) over time is correlated with reduced rates of apprehension of illegal aliens. I made you more figures so you could see this. pic.twitter.com/bLyNd2mKF6— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

So if you are concerned about keeping these numbers low, these observations suggest continuing to fund this agency and maintaining a steady number of agents on the ground may be an effective way to do so.— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

An alternative explanation is that there are fewer people crossing our border over time (which is supported by the aforementioned studies above). Regardless, these results do not support (C) and instead suggest that the border security strategies currently in place are effective.— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

In sum, there is NO EVIDENCE that there is a border crisis that requires building a wall. The number of immigrants coming into the US are decreasing, and they are not causing any upticks in crime. A wall is an unnecessary feature and would be a total waste of taxpayer money.— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

Sincerely,

Your neighborhood scientist born and raised two hours away from the US Southern Border in Texas who is now on day 59 without pay.— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

Here are my sources: (1) “Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2015” from the Office of Immigration Statistics, the US Department of Homeland Security (2) “Facts on U.S. Immigrants, 2016” from the Pew Research Center— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

(3) “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey” from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Department of Labor(4) “U.S. Border Patrol Monthly Apprehensions (FY 2000 – FY 2017)” from the Stats and Summaries page of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

(7) “The Cost of Immigration Enforcement and Border Security” from the American Immigration Council. January 2017.(8) “U.S. Border Patrol Fiscal Year Staffing Statistics (FY 1992 – FY 2017)” from the Stats and Summaries page of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection— Kristin Hook (@Kristin_Hook) January 25, 2019

https://reasonish.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Why-Science-Matters-to-the-White-House.jpg350600Writey McWordishhttp://reasonish.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Reasonish_capture-300x145.pngWritey McWordish2019-01-26 10:39:342019-01-26 10:39:42A furloughed scientist used her time during the shutdown to factcheck Trump's "border crisis"

We can’t decide whether to laugh or cry at the latest in a series of many, many, many, many things that would’ve been a months-long media scandal. That is, had Trump not decided to try and get them ALL done in his first year as president.

We’re not going to list them, as there’s just too damn many of them. Just yesterday Trump tried to attack Comey for lying. Again, without providing evidence. He continued his row with the NFL and got driven into a defensive stance on his call to a Gold Star widow. He had told her ‘your guy’ (apparently not knowing Sgt. La David T. Johnson’s name) knew what he signed up for. And now, apparently, there’s Fake Melania.

Yes, you read that right. For some reason, Trump thought it’d be a great idea (the best, the very best) to bring in a fake First Lady on TV.

Twitter user Joe Vargas was apparently the first to notice Fake Melania after Trump called attention to the presence of Melania, apparently trying to reïnforce the idea that it was, in fact, Melania. Vargas got suspicious and started comparing faces.

Here’s Fake Melania

This is not Melania. To think they would go this far & try & make us think its her on TV is mind blowing. Makes me wonder what else is a lie pic.twitter.com/JhPVmXdGit

Well, he’s right. That is definitely not Melania. Hey, Donald, care to explain why you have a fake wife strolling about? Kind of reminds us of Saddam Hussein or Moammar al-Qadhafi and their body doubles. What gives?

That leads us to something else though: could we have a fake Trump? One who, like Fake Melania, looks kind of like the real deal, but isn’t? Don’t worry, the orange and fake hair can stay, but skip on the insanity, the narcisissm and such. And maybe give him a couple of IQ points extra, while we’re at it. We could probably all benefit from a Fake Donald Trump.

No, that’s not really true. But he managed to spark something: Facebook rants. Now, this is not the Facebook rant of your angry coworker against the machinations of his own mind that he thinks are out to get him. Not by a long shot. When these Facebook users rant, the world pays attention.

What happened? Well, Donald wants to cancel DACA in a fit of seeming like he can actually form a policy. This sparked a reply from a few well-known Facebook users. One of them being the ultimate Facebook users, Mark Zuckerberg himself:

Among the large number of people disagreeing with the latest Trump attempt was President Bill Clinton:

And yes, Trump managed to get another Facebook-rant from President Barack Obama:

Is that it? No, not really. Yet another Facebook rant on the decision came from one of the richest men on earth:

So, there you have it. Amidst reports that, for some reason, 29% of New Yorkers STILL see Trump favourably, he finally starts having a Presidential legacy. Not with the Wall, or Tax Reform or even Making America Great Again.. but not everyone can say that some of the most influencial and wealthy people ranted about their policies on Facebook within a span of 24 hours.

In his series of tweets from yesterday, commander-in-chief and POTUS “Real” Donald Trump told the internet he’s meeting his generals to discuss the North Korea situation.

And he thanked us. Or someone. We don’t really know what to make of it! Why? Is he assuming praise for doing the job he was elected to do? Did someone offer him a cookie? Was Melania giving him a blowjob under the table and did he mistakenly thank the internet while orgasming to the thought of nuking North Korea? Much like covfefe, we’re assuming this masterstroke of internet communication will remain a mystery.

Not unlike the cognitive capabilities of Trump himself, as he promptly displayed in a follow-up tweet.

The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.

Stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea. That includes China. You know, that little country that inspired the themeparkish city blocks with lots of asian food and cramped up little shops owned by old men who sell Gremlins.

Chinatown: the source of indigestion and Gremlins.

Well, apart from Chinatown and cheap labour back in the day when the Railroads were being built and the Irish demanded actual wages, China is now once again the source of cheap labour. And a huge trade deficit. 2016 sported a $309.6 billion dollars deficit, a total trade of $648,2 billion, which would be about 3% of the total US economy. And that’s just the cost of stopping trade with one country, without even accounting for the damages that large companies like Apple would suffer if they had to move production (or their headquarters) elsewhere because of trade bans.